YAT is a computer-computer tournament that emulates a human-human tournament or a SSDF | ICGA | CSVN | CCT tournament as close as possible in the sense that opening books are allowed, all kind of learning is allowed, opponent preparation is allowed and last but not least that engine authors have the right to know the name and elo rating of the opponent.

Specifics:

Hardware HP Z800 8 core, 8 Gb RAM, approx 2.8 GHz

Time control 40m/20m repeating.

Type: Robin rounds.

Number of games at least 1000.

Single processor only.

Permanent Brain = on.

Opening book(s) (2)

Learning allowed.

Opponent name and elo rating provided (1)

No table bases since they may influence other cores.

Interface: in principle Arena.

Elo rating provided. Before a game starts I will put a textfile (OPPONENT.TXT) in your root directory that contains the name of your opponent and the elo rating, CCRL ratings will be used. You then can set your contempt factor, change playing style, change opening book, whatever you think is needed to get the best result. Textfile layout:

Komodo

3274

2500

Red being the opponent elo, green the elo rating of your program. You can choose to ignore this information but on the other hand if you for instance know your opponent is 500-600 elo better then maybe it's a smart move to set your contempt factor on a full pawn (or so) and take the first occasion on a 3-fold repetion and celebrate the ½ point as a victory.

If you don't want to use the OPPONENT.TXT textfile as input because your engine supports the Winboard or UCI command for that then you should inform me explicitly.

On opening books - you are responsible for your own opening book. If you don't have one make sure you get one. There are many freely available opening books. You can also make the choice to use the Arena book. Just instruct me well.

Other stipulations

You are allowed to change version and/or opening book only once.

Round updates | ranking | PGN download.

Live support all games (4 games at the same time) with TLCV.

Private engines allowed as long as they are not clones or closely derived, I will check.

Start tournament at February 1, 2016 so you can make preparations. If you are interested subscribe using the contact form. Subscription will close January 28, 2016

With 9 engines we will play 30 rounds producing 1080 x 40/20 games all together, thus each engine will play 240 games.

Because of the trouble to configure each game with the right parameters concerning opponent learning (OPPONENT.TXT or its Winboard equivalent RATING) and the big time delays that will cause we will speedup the tournament by letting the engines play 30 (instead of 1) games in 9 rounds against each other. So the complete paring for this first edition of YAT will be:

Round 1

30 games

Andscacs

Zurichess

28½ - 1½

iCE

ProDeo

24½ - 5½

WaDuuttie

Arasan

16½-13½

Vajolet

Gaviota

16½-13½

Tornado

bye

Round 4

ProDeo

Gaviota

14 - 16

Zurichess

Vajolet

2 - 28

Tornado

WaDuuttie

9 - 21

Andscacs

iCE

18 - 12

Arasan

bye

Round 7

Vajolet

iCE

10½-19½

Gaviota

Andscacs

6 - 24

Arasan

Tornado

17½-12½

ProDeo

Zurichess

23 - 7

WaDuuttie

bye

Round 2

30 games

Arasan

Vajolet

18 - 12

ProDeo

WaDuuttie

3½ - 26½

Zurichess

iCE

½ - 29½

Tornado

Andscacs

4 - 26

Gaviota

bye

Round 5

WaDuuttie

Andscacs

11 - 19

Vajolet

Tornado

19 - 11

Gaviota

Zurichess

26 - 4

Arasan

ProDeo

25 - 5

iCE

bye

Round 8

Tornado

ProDeo

13 - 17

Andscacs

Arasan

20½-9½

iCE

Gaviota

22½-7½

WaDuuttie

Vajolet

14½-15½

Zurichess

bye

Round 3

30 games

iCE

Tornado

26 - 4

WaDuuttie

Zurichess

29½ - ½

Vajolet

ProDeo

21½ - 8½

Gaviota

Arasan

15 - 15

Andscacs

bye

Round 6

Zurichess

Arasan

1½ - 28½

Tornado

Gaviota

9½ - 20½

Andscacs

Vajolet

22 - 8

iCE

WaDuuttie

20 - 10

ProDeo

bye

Round 9

Gaviota

WaDuuttie

9½ - 20½

Arasan

iCE

10½-19½

ProDeo

Andscacs

7 - 23

Zurichess

Tornado

4½ - 25½

Vajolet

bye

Because the most likely scenario is that the battle for the tournament victory will be

Remark: TLCV and Arena sometimes miscommunicate at the start of a new game and have the colors wrong. This oddity (bug) however has no effect on the engines itself, the result table is okay, the PGN for download likewise. Another visual glitch that may happen (or not) is that the TLCV clocks are not in sync with the Arena clocks.